Something we have learned over our 5+ years at Brighter Planet is that, in certain cases, carbon impact can be described most powerfully when it is given in “real life” units. That is, instead of saying a flight has a footprint of 1,045.77 kg CO2e, you say it’s like adding 69 cars to the road for a day.

We released a new feature to CM1 a couple of weeks ago that provides dozens of “equivalents” like this with every JSON and XML response we deliver (example). Reactions so far have been positive, so we’re now marking the feature as public beta.

The conversions are part of our new open-source co2_equivalents library—check out the source for details, including complete citations.

Brighter Planet helps clients identify opportunities for data-driven sustainability initiatives, designs programs around these opportunities to deliver business value, and assists with integration and development